How do you get accepted to your #1 college choice AND be awarded financial aid? By understanding how different types of colleges award both need-based and merit-based aid, you can put together a college application list that increases both your chances of being accepted and receiving a generous aid package. Here’s how to get college scholarships:

Step 1: Get Accepted to College

The first order of business is to get accepted to a number of colleges. The potential issue is that the criteria for admissions is very different at different universities. The question of how you get accepted to the Ivy League is not the same as the question of how to get into the University of Wisconsin, which is still different from being accepted to your regional four-year college or a less selective liberal arts college. You first need to understand the admissions requirements for the schools you are targeting and follow these requirements very carefully.  

Bear in mind, however, that at the top-tier universities, there are unstated, subjective factors in the admissions process that are not easy to discern. For example, to get accepted to Harvard or any of the other Ivy League schools, you not only need outstanding grades, test scores, and teacher recommendations: you also need to demonstrate things like motivation, energy, curiosity, leadership ability, and special talents. 

Therefore, as you prepare for college during high school, you need to concentrate on your academic performance. No matter where you want to go to college, you must do well academically. But the more ambitious you are, and the more you want to get accepted to the Ivy League or other top-tier universities, you must also cultivate these subjective characteristics. 

Step 2: Earn or Receive College Financial Aid 

It is more difficult to be admitted while also being awarded a merit aid scholarship. Most universities will reserve their scare scholarship dollars for its top performing students and applicants, focusing first on need-based aid and then non-need-based merit aid. You don’t automatically earn consideration for a college scholarship just for applying.  

The better your high school performance, the higher the odds you’ll win a scholarship. For example, the very selective liberal arts college Washington and Lee will award non-need merit-based scholarships to only a very small percentage of its incoming class (see detail below). It reserves most of its financial aid budget for students with high financial need. So, it you want to be awarded The Johnson Scholarship at Washington and Lee (W&L), you need to be among the cream of the crop within its applicant pool.  

Examples of How Financial Aid is Disbursed 

University of Puget Sound – Less Selective Liberal Arts College (LAC) 

At some less-selective private colleges with a high cost of attendance but lower yields, many of its students receive some type of aid, whether it be need-based or merit-based aid. For example, at the University of Puget Sound, 100% of the 430 students in the Class of 2028 received some form of financial aid. 64% (277/430) received need-based financial aid and the remaining 36% (153/430) received merit aid. Puget Sound’s tuition is $65,000 for the 2025-2026 academic year with the total cost of attendance (COA) approaching $88,000. The average aid package for students demonstrating need is just over $59,000. The non-need-based award package for those 153 students was $30,400. 

Bucknell University – More Selective LAC 

But, at the more selective Bucknell University, only 50% (493/991) of the Class of 2028 students are getting any sort of financial aid from the institution, while the other 50% of Bucknell students will pay the full price of admission. 41% (407/991) received need-based financial aid and 9% (86/991) received merit aid (excluding 79 athletes). Bucknell’s tuition is $70,000 for the 2025-2026 academic year with the total cost of attendance (COA) just over $88,000. The average aid package for students demonstrating need is just over $52,000. The non-need-based award package for those 86 students was $19,000. 

Washington and Lee – Even More Selective LAC 

At W&L, which has an impressive endowment for a school its size, 61% (287/472) of the Class of 2028 students are receiving financial aid. 57% (269/472) received need-based financial aid and 4% (18/472) received merit aid. W&L’s tuition is $66,800 for the 2025-2026 academic year with the total cost of attendance (COA) just over $86,500. The average aid package for students demonstrating need is just over $68,500. The non-need-based award package is an impressive $60,000, likely due to many of the incoming 18 students being awarded The Johnson Scholarship. 

Source: College Common Data Set reports. 

Get Accepted to the Ivy League With Financial Aid 

How do you get accepted to the Ivy League with a scholarship? Can you get accepted to Harvard with a merit-based scholarship? The answer is: ‘not likely’. The first issue is that unlike W&L, Bucknell or the University of Puget Sound, Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League do not offer merit-based scholarships. Their financial aid budgets are reserved for students who exhibit financial need. 

For Harvard’s Class of 2028, roughly 54,000 high schoolers applied of which only 1,970 students were admitted, an acceptance rate of below 4%. But, Harvard is very generous to the high-need students it accepts. For the Class of 2028, 920 of the 1630 (57%) enrolled students qualified for need-based aid with the average package totaling $74,000. Only 3 students received non-need merit aid of which the average award was only $6,000.  

What’s the conclusion? While Harvard is very generous to students who qualify for need-based aid, only the most exceptional high-need students in the world will be admitted to Harvard.  

What Are the Odds You Will Receive Financial Aid? 

So, what are your odds of getting accepted with a merit scholarship to an Ivy League university?  

Very small. 

But what are your odds of getting accepted to another college with a scholarship? They could be pretty good, if you are strategic about where you send your applications. 

What Should You Do? 

Understand the financial aid process at different schools 

If you want to get accepted to university with a scholarship, you first need to understand how different schools allocate their scholarship dollars. Use the examples above as reference points while your building your college list. 

What college scholarships do you want? 

Second, you need to make sure what sort of scholarship you are aiming for? Will you be eligible for a need-based aid? If not, you need to hunt for schools that offer merit-based scholarships. 

Where will you most likely get college financial aid? 

Third, you need to look at which schools are more likely to offer YOU a scholarship. You need to carefully assess where you fit in the application pool. If you are going get accepted to university with a scholarship, you need to be realistic about which schools are going to shower you with money. As we have seen, the University of Puget Sound is mostly likely – of the colleges we examined above – to give you a merit-based scholarship. 

Need help with the college admissions process?  

College education is an investment, and college admission to selective schools is very competitive, especially Ivy League and the ever-expanding list of Little Ivies and Public Ivies. So how can you invest your college budget wisely? How can you get accepted to college with scholarships? 

These are questions that the team at Great College Advice can answer. We can help you identify those colleges where you will likely be accepted AND receive a generous aid package. Just contact us on this form and we’ll set up a no-cost, no-obligation meeting so we can learn more about you and discuss how we can help make the college admissions process more successful and less stressful.  

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.  

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post How to Get College Scholarships first appeared on Great College Advice.

“Very carefully.”

The same sensibility applies to choosing a college.  A college may not clamp its toothy jaw around your arm and rip it off, it’s still a good idea to be careful in choosing the right college for you.

Too many kids choose a college based on the wrong criteria.  They look too hard at the architecture, they fret too much about the climate, and they obsess about climbing walls.

As educators, we try to keep the focus where it should be:  on your education.  While the some of the atmospheric issues of architecture and climate–and the amenities like climbing walls–can factor into the choice, we want to help you be sure to consider the kinds of educational environments that will help you succeed.  We want to help you identify the resources, both material and human, that you need in order to propel you personal and professionally into the future.

And the thing is, what’s right for one kid could be just awful for another.  Every student is different, and every student wants and needs different things out of their college education.

So at Great College Advice, we take the time and give the care necessary to help you identify the criteria that will drive your college choice.

And then based on our experience, we will help you identify the colleges and universities that meet those criteria.
 
It’s a fun an exciting process. No alligators.
 

The post Find the Perfect School for You first appeared on Great College Advice.

The post Get Help from an Admissions Insider first appeared on Great College Advice.

Similarly, the rankings organizations use these student to faculty ratios in how they rate different schools against one another.  The lower the ratio, the higher the rank.

However, student-to-teacher ratios are misleading statistics. They really don’t tell you much about the quality of teaching going on at an American college or university. It turns out that the research agrees with me.

Which teachers are included in student to teacher ratios?

In a report by the American Federation of Teachers, entitled, “American Academic: The State of the Higher Education Workforce, 1997-2007,” We learn that adjunct instructors and graduate students are teaching a very high percentage of undergraduate courses in the United States. The AFT updated its research in 2020, only to find that higher education is delivered by an “army of temps” that make low wages–sometimes at or below the poverty line.

The fact is that these ratios do not really reflect how higher education is being delivered and by whom.  These ratios are not a great guide to understanding what is really happening in today’s college and university classrooms.

What is the actual student to faculty ratio? 10%?  25%?  50%?

In thinking about the student to faculty ratio, we tend to assume that the faculty are full-time teachers–most with tenured positions–whose life-calling is to advance human knowledge and impart it to young people in their classrooms.

The facts belie our assumptions.

A 2023 report by the American Association of University Professors using data compiled by the US Department of Education found the following:

At community colleges, it’s worse: four out of every five people teaching a course are non-tenure-track faculty.

At publicly-funded research universities (you know, those “flagship” campuses like UC Berkeley, CU-Boulder, Michigan, and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill). A whopping 41% of the instructional staff members are graduate assistants, 15.8% are part-time faculty, and 14.4% are full-time, non tenure track faculty. So at our “flagship” research universities. On average, only 28.9% of the instructional staff are full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty members.

On average, private universities fare no better, with only about 29% of instructional faculty at both research and comprehensive universities either tenured or on the tenure track. But within this group, it’s important to recognize that different universities have very different mixes of instructional faculty. And as usual, those universities with bigger budgets and bigger endowments will generally have more full-time, tenure-track faculty. Also, many smaller, liberal arts teaching colleges are likely to have a higher proportion of tenure-track faculty. Even though the proportion of these professors has been declining in the past decade, too.

The one major difference of private, comprehensive colleges and universities (i.e., not the doctoral granting research universities) is that you will find very few graduate assistants teaching courses: only 2% of instructional faculty at these institutions are graduate students.

Why is this stuff important?  Because when you hear statistics like “student-to-faculty ratios.” These ratios usually include ALL INSTRUCTIONAL STAFF, including adjuncts and graduate students. Hidden behind this statistical ratio is the dirty, little secret that full-time. Tenured professors of yore are NOT the norm in most larger universities, whether public or private.

So when the admissions office or the leader of your student tour trumpets a low student-to-faculty ratio. Ask in the admissions office some more probing questions. Take a copy of the AFT report with you to the admissions office. Ask what percentage of undergraduate courses are taught by full-time, tenure-track faculty, adjuncts, and where they come from. Ask about the proportion of courses taught by grad students.

And as you ask these questions, watch the face of the admissions officer. It’s going to turn white. After a moment of panic, the officer stumbles off to find the director of admission or the VP for enrollment management. Then these marketing and sales bosses will try to reassure you that “faculty are very qualified” and “incredibly accessible” and “they are required to hold office hours.” They will downplay the importance of these statistics in the AFT report. And they’ll probably fudge the answers (which are publicly available online and reported annually to the US government).

But I assure you, these statistics from AFT are going to give you a better idea of what the undergraduate educational experience will be like.

If you’re interested in more on my take on student-to-faculty ratios, you can get a general explanation of what these statistics mean and don’t mean. How a low student-to-faculty ratio can actually have a negative impact on class sizes, and you can watch a short video in which I ask some students on one college campus what this statistic means to them. And in the meantime, when college representatives tell you that the student-to-faculty ratio on this or that campus is really low, just smile knowingly and ignore them.

Mark Montgomery
Myth Busting College Counselor

The post What is the Student to Faculty Ratio first appeared on Great College Advice.

Most lists of “best pre-law schools” rank universities by prestige and leave it there. That’s not especially useful — and according to the counselors at Great College Advice, it can actually send students in the wrong direction.

“To get into fantastic law schools, you need to be engaged. You need to be aware of what’s going on in the world,” says Pam Gentry, senior admissions consultant at Great College Advice. “A lot of students choose to major in political science, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is being engaged and putting yourself out there — working on those skills of leadership, community involvement, of being a good listener.”

That reframing shapes how the schools below were selected. Each one earns its place not just because of name recognition, but because it consistently delivers the specific combination of analytical writing practice, community engagement, internship access, and intellectual depth that law schools actually evaluate. Within that list, the right school for any individual student depends on fit — campus size, culture, location, and the environment in which that student does their best thinking.

How to Read This List

Each entry includes a standout pre-law feature, recommended majors, and a best-fit profile — because the goal is not to rank schools against each other, but to help you identify which environment is right for you.

1. University of Virginia

Type: Large public research university | Location: Charlottesville, VA (2.5 hours from Washington, D.C.)

Why It Works for Pre-Law

UVA is one of the few universities in the country that offers a named Government major — a distinction that Pam Gentry specifically highlights as rare and valuable for pre-law students. The department is built around exactly the analytical reading and writing skills that law school demands, and UVA’s robust pre-law advising infrastructure gives students clear pathways for LSAT preparation, internship placement, and faculty mentorship.

Proximity to Washington, D.C., means students can access federal agencies, think tanks, and major law firms for internships — the kind of hands-on engagement that strengthens law school applications far more than an impressive transcript alone.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Named Government major; direct pipeline to D.C. internship ecosystem

Recommended Majors: Government, Economics, English

Best Fit For: Students who want a large, resource-rich public university with strong pre-law culture and access to policy and legal institutions

2. Dartmouth College

Type: Ivy League research university | Location: Hanover, NH

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Dartmouth is the other institution Pam Gentry names specifically for offering a Government major — a meaningful differentiator in a landscape where most universities offer only Political Science. The college’s relatively small size for an Ivy means undergraduates have closer access to faculty than at larger peer institutions, which matters for developing the writing skills and faculty relationships that translate into strong law school recommendations.

Dartmouth’s quarter system also allows students to take a wider variety of courses across disciplines — an advantage for pre-law students who want to pair their government or economics coursework with writing-intensive electives in English or comparative literature.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Government major with Ivy-caliber faculty access; smaller scale than most research universities

Recommended Majors: Government, Economics, Comparative Literature

Best Fit For: Students who want the prestige and resources of an Ivy but in a more intimate academic environment

3. Georgetown University

Type: Mid-size research university | Location: Washington, D.C.

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Georgetown’s location is its most distinctive pre-law asset. Students are embedded in the legal and policy capital of the country, with direct access to federal courts, Congressional offices, the State Department, law firms, and public interest organizations. For students who want to test their interest in law through internships before committing to an LSAT prep cycle, no campus in the country offers more immediate access.

Georgetown’s own robust pre-law advising program, combined with a student body that skews toward policy and public service, creates a peer environment that reinforces the kind of engagement and awareness that Pam Gentry identifies as essential for law school readiness.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: D.C. location with unmatched access to legal and policy internships

Recommended Majors: Government, Justice and Peace Studies, Economics, English

Best Fit For: Students drawn to public interest law, policy, or international law who want real-world exposure during the undergraduate years

4. Amherst College

Type: Small liberal arts college | Location: Amherst, MA

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Amherst consistently appears on law school placement lists not because it has a pre-law advising center to match Georgetown’s, but because its curriculum does exactly what law schools reward: it forces students to read primary texts carefully, construct written arguments, and defend those arguments in seminar settings. That is, in essence, what law school is.

Amherst’s open curriculum — with no distribution requirements — allows pre-law students to design a rigorous course of study in whatever combination of disciplines builds their strongest analytical foundation. Small class sizes mean writing receives close faculty attention, which is how undergraduate writing actually improves.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Writing-intensive liberal arts curriculum with no distribution requirements; exceptional law school placement rates

Recommended Majors: English, Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought (LJST), Economics, Political Science

Best Fit For: Students who thrive in small seminar environments and want a curriculum that prioritizes analytical writing above all else

5. University of Chicago

Type: Large research university | Location: Chicago, IL

Why It Works for Pre-Law

UChicago’s Core curriculum is, by design, one of the most intellectually demanding undergraduate experiences in the country — and it maps almost perfectly onto what law schools evaluate. Students read primary texts across philosophy, social science, natural science, and the humanities, write extensively in response to those texts, and are expected to engage in rigorous argumentative discussion. That is not incidental preparation for law school; it is essentially the same cognitive training.

Chicago’s urban location provides strong internship access in legal and policy settings, and the university’s pre-law advising resources are extensive. The intellectual culture here rewards exactly the kind of student who wants to become a lawyer for the right reasons — because they find ideas genuinely compelling.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Core curriculum that trains analytical argument at the undergraduate level better than almost any other program in the country

Recommended Majors: Economics, Political Science, English Language and Literature, Philosophy

Best Fit For: Intellectually driven students who want to be challenged across disciplines and are serious about developing the writing and argumentation skills that define legal practice

6. Williams College

Type: Small liberal arts college | Location: Williamstown, MA

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Williams routinely places among the top liberal arts colleges for law school admission, and the reason is structural: its tutorial system, in which pairs of students meet regularly with a faculty member to present and defend written arguments, is essentially a replication of the law school seminar in miniature. Students develop the habit of writing analytically, receiving critical feedback, and revising — skills that most undergraduates at larger universities develop far more slowly.

Williams also maintains a strong alumni network in law and public policy, which students can begin building through the college’s career resources as early as sophomore year.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Tutorial system that builds analytical writing and argumentation through regular one-on-one and small-group faculty engagement

Recommended Majors: English, Political Economy, History, Comparative Literature

Best Fit For: Students who want an intimate academic environment with exceptional writing instruction and a tight alumni network in law

7. Northwestern University

Type: Large research university | Location: Evanston, IL (bordering Chicago to the north)

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Northwestern offers pre-law students an unusual combination: the scale and resources of a major research university, proximity to Chicago’s substantial legal and business ecosystem, and one of the strongest undergraduate writing programs among Tier 1 universities.

Northwestern’s pre-law advising is well-resourced, and its alumni network in law is active and geographically distributed — particularly valuable for students interested in corporate law, where firm relationships matter.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Strong writing requirements university-wide; Chicago internship access; active pre-law alumni network

Recommended Majors: Economics, Political Science, English, Philosophy

Best Fit For: Students who want a large university environment with strong writing standards and immediate access to urban legal and business internships

8. Pomona College

Type: Small liberal arts college | Location: Claremont, CA

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Pomona is part of the Claremont Consortium, which means students have access to five colleges’ worth of courses, faculty, and resources while still experiencing the intimacy of a small liberal arts campus. For pre-law students, this is a significant structural advantage: they can pursue deep writing-intensive coursework at Pomona while drawing on the broader consortium for economics, government, and policy courses at Claremont McKenna.

Pomona’s pre-law advising is active, its alumni network in California’s legal community is strong, and its academic culture rewards exactly the kind of rigorous, text-based analytical thinking that law schools seek.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Access to Claremont Consortium resources with the academic culture of a small liberal arts college

Recommended Majors: English, Politics, Economics, Philosophy

Best Fit For: Students interested in California or West Coast legal careers who want a liberal arts foundation with broader course access than a single-college campus provides

9. University of Michigan

Type: Large public research university | Location: Ann Arbor, MI

Why It Works for Pre-Law

Michigan is the strongest public university option on this list for pre-law students who are weighing cost against outcomes. Its undergraduate pre-law advising is among the most developed in the country, its alumni network in law is enormous and geographically wide, and its programs in political science, economics, and English are consistently ranked among the best at any public institution.

For families concerned about the cost of law school, building a strong application from a well-resourced public flagship is a legitimate and strategically sound path. Michigan’s in-state tuition makes it one of the most cost-effective routes to a top-tier law school application.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Exceptional pre-law advising infrastructure; enormous alumni network; cost-effective relative to peer institutions

Recommended Majors: Political Science, Economics, English Language and Literature, Philosophy

Best Fit For: Students, particularly Michigan residents, who want the resources of a major research university without the cost of a private institution — and who are thinking strategically about the total cost of an undergraduate-plus-law-school path

10. New York University

Type: Large research university | Location: New York City, NY

Why It Works for Pre-Law

NYU’s single greatest asset for pre-law students is also its most obvious one: New York City. No other city in the country offers comparable density of law firms, courts, public interest organizations, corporate legal departments, and policy institutions — and NYU students have direct access to all of it through internship pipelines that begin in the first year.

For students who learn best by doing — who want to be working in a legal setting during their undergraduate years, not just studying about the law — NYU’s location is unmatched. The university’s pre-law advising is strong, and its faculty connections to the legal world are deep.

Standout Pre-Law Feature: Unparalleled internship access in one of the world’s most active legal markets

Recommended Majors: Politics, Economics, English and American Literature, Philosophy

Best Fit For: Students drawn to corporate law, public interest law, or international law who want real-world legal experience woven through their undergraduate years from day one

The Underlying Logic: What These Schools Share

Every school on this list delivers some combination of the four things that Pam Gentry identifies as genuinely predictive of law school success:

Analytical writing practice — not just a writing requirement, but a culture in which writing is taken seriously and improved through sustained feedback.

Community engagement — a campus environment, location, or advising culture that actively encourages students to lead organizations, pursue internships, and connect their academic work to the world outside the classroom.

Major flexibility — the freedom to pursue English, economics, government, or comparative literature rather than defaulting to political science, because those majors build the analytical skills law schools actually evaluate.

Internship access — through location, alumni networks, or advising infrastructure that gives students the opportunity to work in legal settings before they apply to law school.

No single school on this list is right for every student. The right choice is the one where a specific student will write the most, engage the most, and grow the most — not the one with the most prestigious name.

A Note on Timing

One practical point worth flagging: the LSAT does not go away. As Pam Gentry notes, “There’s no test-optional heading into grad school.” Students who struggled with standardized tests in high school need to begin thinking early about building the confidence and test-taking skills they will need for the LSAT — typically taken at the end of junior year or the summer after. The undergraduate school you choose should have pre-law advising that supports that preparation, not just helps you pick a major.

Working With Great College Advice on Pre-Law Planning

The college list is only one piece of the pre-law puzzle. At Great College Advice, our counselors work with pre-law students to identify the undergraduate environment that fits their specific academic profile, legal interests, and long-term goals; and to build a plan for the undergraduate years that positions them competitively for law school admission. If you are working through this decision, we are happy to help you think it through. Request a free consultation today.

The post Top Pre-Law Schools to Consider Applying to first appeared on Great College Advice.

One of the most persistent myths in pre-med advising is that biology is the only viable undergraduate major for students who want to become doctors. It isn’t. Medical schools evaluate applicants on a combination of science GPA, MCAT performance, research experience, and intellectual depth, and that last quality can be built through almost any major. The choice of undergraduate major matters far less than most students assume, and understanding why changes how you should approach the next four years.

At Great College Advice, our counselors work with students who are serious about medical school from the moment they start thinking about undergraduate programs. The question we hear most often is some version of: “Do I have to major in biology?” The answer, consistently, is no.

Do Medical Schools Require a Biology Major?

No. Medical schools specify a defined set of prerequisite courses, not a specific major. According to Great College Advice counselor Pam Gentry, those requirements typically include four biology courses, four chemistry courses, two physics courses, enough calculus to support performance in those science classes, and at least one social science course. Any student who completes those courses, regardless of their major, meets the academic baseline for medical school admission.

The distinction matters because it opens the door to a much wider range of undergraduate experiences, and medical schools actively value that breadth.

Can Pre-Med Students Major in the Humanities?

Yes, and medical schools often value it. As Pam Gentry puts it: “Med schools love students who major in the humanities. They love students who major in the social sciences. Be a religion major, be a psychology major, be an English major, because they need doctors who have excellent critical thinking skills.”

When an applicant arrives with a degree outside biology, admissions committees understand that the student has spent years engaging in analytical writing, grappling with complex ideas, and thinking across disciplines. That signals the capacity to relate to patients, navigate ambiguity, and bring a perspective to medicine that goes beyond the clinical. Majoring in the liberal arts before medical school is a well-established path that admissions committees increasingly recognize.

There is also a structural scheduling advantage. An English major typically requires eight to ten courses to complete the degree. A biology major requires twelve to sixteen. A student majoring in English who also completes the pre-med prerequisite sequence has used their scheduling flexibility to explore more of what undergraduate education offers, before the demands of medical school narrow that window permanently.

Which Undergraduate Majors Are Best for Pre-Med Students?

The following table compares the most common undergraduate major choices for pre-med students across the dimensions that matter most for medical school preparation.

Biology and Neuroscience are the familiar path. Approximately 60% of pre-med students major in biology, making it the most common choice by a significant margin. Neuroscience covers similar scientific ground while being more concentrated. Students who know they want to work in research from day one, and who want the most direct overlap between major coursework and prerequisites, will find either path efficient. The tradeoff is differentiation. When most applicants share the same major, standing out requires doing something distinctive with the rest of your time.

Humanities majors are the most underutilized option for pre-med students. English, comparative literature, religion, and philosophy develop the analytical writing and critical reasoning skills that medical schools explicitly value. A student who has spent four years reading complex texts, constructing arguments, and writing analytically has built a cognitive toolkit that translates directly into the kind of doctor who can communicate a diagnosis clearly, navigate a difficult family conversation, or think through a clinical ethical dilemma.

Social sciences sit between the sciences and humanities in prerequisite overlap and analytical development. Psychology is worth highlighting specifically: it fulfills the social science prerequisite requirement, develops behavioral and analytical reasoning, and connects directly to the patient-facing dimensions of medicine.

What Actually Determines Medical School Admission?

The major is a vehicle, not the destination. The overall medical school acceptance rate is roughly 40%, making it one of the most competitive graduate pathways in the United States. The factors that determine admission are consistent regardless of major:

• Science GPA: Grades in the prerequisite science courses are the most heavily weighted academic metric. This is true whether a student majors in biology or English. The science courses are the same, and performance in them is what counts. Students considering BS/MD combined programs should note that these pathways carry even stricter GPA thresholds during undergraduate years.

• MCAT score: The Medical College Admission Test evaluates scientific knowledge, critical analysis, and reasoning. Strong preparation is possible from any major, provided prerequisite coursework is complete.

• Research experience: Medical schools want evidence that applicants understand scientific inquiry in practice. Biology and neuroscience majors have a structural advantage here, but students in other majors can pursue research through pre-health advisors, faculty relationships, and summer programs.

• Well-rounded development: As Pam Gentry describes it, a competitive pre-med applicant is “somebody who’s engaged in what they love and has shown interest in the world, along with getting good grades in their science classes.” Understanding how colleges weigh grades versus extracurricular activities is essential for building a balanced profile.

Is the Undergraduate Experience More Than Just Medical School Preparation?

Yes, and treating it as a waiting room is the most common mistake pre-professional students make. Professional schools want applicants who know who they are, who have had real experiences, and who have grown as people alongside accumulating the required qualifications.

This point extends beyond medicine. As Great College Advice counselor Sarah Myers notes: “It’s really important to have a broad knowledge of the world and to have interacted with people from different disciplines on your college campus. You’ve got to start to spread your experiences out more. Those are the people who are the most successful.”

Admissions committees read personal statements, conduct interviews, and evaluate letters of recommendation precisely because they are trying to understand who the applicant is as a person, not just whether they can pass organic chemistry. Students who spend their undergraduate years doing nothing but studying science, accumulating prerequisites, and optimizing for GPA are often less competitive than students who have also led organizations, engaged in meaningful service, pursued creative interests, and developed a clear sense of their own values. Building a strong extracurricular profile is not an optional extra for pre-med applicants.

Does the Undergraduate Institution Matter for Medical School?

Yes, but not in the way most families assume. Elite universities do have strong medical school acceptance rates, but so do many state flagship programs and small liberal arts colleges, often at a fraction of the cost. Given that medical school itself can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the financial calculus of undergraduate choice is a real consideration.

Small liberal arts colleges offer something large research universities sometimes cannot: direct access to faculty research from the first or second year. For pre-med students who need research experience on their application, a smaller institution where a first-year student can actually work alongside a professor, rather than waiting years for a spot in a large lab, can be a meaningful advantage. The benefits of studying science at a small liberal arts school are frequently underestimated by pre-med families. Understanding the difference between a research university and a liberal arts college is a useful starting point when building your college list.

The right undergraduate program for a pre-med student is one that offers the prerequisite courses, strong pre-health advising, access to research, and an environment where the student can genuinely thrive academically, socially, and personally. As Great College Advice counselor Jeanette Hadsell puts it: “It’s looking beyond the name of the school. It’s the program specifically, and the environment where the student is going to thrive.”

How Should a Pre-Med Student Choose Their Major?

Start the pre-health course sequence in the first year, which is required regardless of major, and delay major declaration until sophomore year when most schools allow it. That window gives students time to discover where their intellectual interests actually lie before committing to a course of study.

The decision matters not because the wrong major closes the door to medical school, but because the right major can make the next four years genuinely meaningful rather than merely strategic. Biology is a valid choice. So is English, psychology, neuroscience, or religion. The variable that matters most is whether the student is engaged, growing, and building the kind of intellectual and personal depth that medical schools are actually looking for.

Ready to Find the Right Path to Medical School?

Our counselors at Great College Advice can help you think through the full picture: prerequisites, program fit, research access, and how to build an undergraduate experience that positions you for medical school without sacrificing the breadth that makes those four years worth having.

Schedule a free consultation

The post Top Undergraduate Majors for Medical School first appeared on Great College Advice.

For families navigating the college search, understanding how colleges package financial aid can mean the difference between a degree that launches a career and one that burdens a graduate for a decade.

The core challenge is straightforward: award letters are not standardized documents. As our counselors at Great College Advice consistently emphasize, they are designed to make institutions look as generous as possible, which means families must do careful work to separate “other people’s money” (grants and scholarships) from “your money later” (loans) and “your money earned” (work-study wages). Understanding these distinctions is one of the most important things a family can do before committing to a school.

Why the Sticker Price Is Not the Whole Story

The sticker price of a selective private university is not what most students pay. But the gap between sticker price and actual cost depends entirely on how a school packages its aid, and loans are the variable that families most frequently misread.

When a financial aid award letter lists a large “aid package,” that figure can include a mix of grants, subsidized federal loans, unsubsidized federal loans, and work-study. A subsidized loan defers interest until graduation; an unsubsidized loan begins accruing interest the moment it is disbursed. Neither is free money. As our counselors explain, loans are still your money — you are just paying it back later, with interest. Work-study wages are still your money — you are earning them at an hourly wage, which makes a limited dent in a large annual bill.

The practical implication: two schools with identical sticker prices and identical “total aid” figures can produce dramatically different out-of-pocket costs depending on how much of that aid is grant-based versus loan-based. A school offering $40,000 in grants and $5,000 in loans is a fundamentally better financial offer than one offering $30,000 in grants and $15,000 in loans — even though the second school’s total aid number looks larger on paper.

How Financial Aid Packages Work in Practice

The Need-Based Foundation

Need-based aid applies to students whose families demonstrate financial need through the FAFSA and, at most private institutions, the CSS Profile. Because the federal government has faced delays in recent years, many families often wonder how long does FAFSA take to process and how that timeline affects their final award letters. The CSS Profile is administered by the College Board — the same organization that runs the SAT and AP exams — and allows private colleges to apply their own institutional methodology to assess a family’s financial situation. This means a college’s determination of what a family can afford may differ from the federal Student Aid Index produced by the FAFSA. Some schools calculate need more generously than the federal formula; others calculate it more conservatively.

Work-Study: Earned Income, Not a Grant

Work-study — a campus employment opportunity that allows students to earn wages applied toward their college costs — is a standard component of aid at many institutions.

The distinction matters for two reasons. First, work-study wages are earned income, not a grant. A student who is offered $3,000 in work-study must actually work those hours to receive that money. Second, as our counselors note, the structure of work-study varies by institution: some colleges assign students a guaranteed position, while others require students to find their own on-campus job — a process that can be competitive for the more desirable roles. Families should read award letters carefully to understand whether a work-study figure represents a guaranteed placement or an opportunity they must actively pursue.

Need-Blind vs. Need-Aware Admissions

Some colleges evaluate applications without considering a student’s ability to pay: a practice called need-blind admissions. A school that is need-aware, by contrast, may factor financial need into admissions decisions, particularly for students on the margin of acceptance.

The distinction becomes especially significant for international students. As our counselors explain, some universities are need-blind for domestic students but need-aware for international applicants — meaning that while they actively seek international diversity, they cannot offer full need-based scholarships to every international student who qualifies, because their endowment does not support that commitment at scale. The more endowed an institution is, the more likely it is to offer need-blind admissions and robust financial aid to international students.

Applying This Framework to Your College List

Comparing Award Letters Across Schools

The most effective way to evaluate financial aid offers is to standardize the comparison. At Great College Advice, we use a structured spreadsheet that breaks down the full cost of attendance at each institution — tuition, fees, housing, food, travel, books, and supplies — and then categorizes every aid component by type: grants, loans, and work-study. The spreadsheet calculates the actual out-of-pocket gap at each school and the cumulative loan burden a student would carry over four years.

This approach surfaces comparisons that award letters obscure. A school with a higher sticker price and a larger grant offer may yield a lower net cost than one with a lower sticker price and a package that includes significant loans. The numbers become clear only when every component is categorized, and the true gap is calculated.

Reading Award Letters Without Getting Misled

Several specific traps appear consistently in financial aid award letters. First, confirm whether a scholarship is annual or one-time. A $10,000 award that applies only to the first year is worth $10,000 total — not $40,000 over four years. Second, identify whether any scholarship carries conditions: some merit awards require students to maintain a specific GPA, participate in a particular program, or continue playing an instrument. If those conditions are not met, the award disappears. Third, distinguish between subsidized and unsubsidized loans. A subsidized loan defers interest until graduation; an unsubsidized loan begins accruing interest immediately upon disbursement. Both are debt, but the long-term cost differs meaningfully.

Merit Aid vs. Need-Based Aid: A Strategic Consideration

Some highly selective institutions do not offer merit-based aid — their financial aid generosity flows entirely through need-based grants. As our counselors explain, schools like Yale, Princeton, and Stanford do not give merit-based scholarships — a student could be the strongest applicant in the country and still receive no merit aid at these institutions.

This creates an important strategic implication for families: highly selective schools are not the right financial target for every student. A family that does not qualify for need-based aid — or qualifies only partially — may find that a strong regional university offering significant merit scholarships produces a lower net cost than a highly selective school where they receive minimal grant funding.

Building a college list that includes institutions known for generous merit aid — and where a student’s academic profile positions them as a competitive candidate for those awards — is the most reliable path to minimizing college costs for families above need-based aid thresholds.

The Financial Aid Decision Is a List-Building Decision

Understanding how financial aid is packaged is not just an exercise in reading fine print — it is a framework for building a smarter college list. A financially sound college list includes schools across the selectivity spectrum, with deliberate attention to which institutions offer strong need-based grants, which offer strong merit aid, and which offer both in ways that align with a family’s financial profile.

The families who navigate this process most successfully are those who treat financial aid as a variable they can influence through list construction—not a fixed outcome they receive after admission decisions are made. Knowing which schools offer grants versus loans, which schools offer merit discounts as a recruitment strategy, and how to read the award letters that arrive in the spring gives families the information they need to make a decision that serves a student’s education and their financial future.

If you want help building a college list that accounts for both admissions fit and financial outcomes — including identifying which of the best engineering schools in the US belong on your list — our counselors at Great College Advice work through exactly this analysis with every family we serve. We know which institutions are genuinely generous and how to position students to access that generosity.

Need professional help in college admissions? Schedule a free consultation.

The post Understanding Financial Aid Award Letters first appeared on Great College Advice.

Every spring, thousands of families search for the same thing: a ranked list of the best pre-med schools in the country. The expectation is a tidy hierarchy — Penn at the top, followed by a handful of elite names, with a clear signal that admission to one of them guarantees a medical school seat four years later. That list doesn’t exist, and chasing it can lead pre-med students into choices that make the path to medicine harder, not easier.

At Great College Advice, we’ve worked with pre-med students for decades. What we consistently find is that the schools that produce the strongest medical school applicants aren’t always the most prestigious ones — they’re the ones where a specific student could earn excellent science grades, access meaningful research, and still have the bandwidth to become a fully developed human being. Here’s what that actually looks like in practice.

#1. A College Where You Can Actually Earn Strong Science Grades

This is the single most important factor for any pre-med student, and it’s the one most families overlook when building a college list. Medical schools evaluate the science GPA separately from the overall GPA. Performance in biology, chemistry, and physics is the clearest academic signal in the application — and it matters more than the name on the diploma. The practical implication is significant. Competition in science courses at elite universities is fierce. A student who earns excellent grades at a well-supported state flagship or a small liberal arts college can be a stronger medical school applicant than one who struggles for average grades at a highly competitive institution.

As our senior admissions consultant, Pam Gentry, explains: “Getting into medical school in the US is very difficult — it has about a 40% acceptance rate. The most important thing a student needs to do to get into med school is to have a good GPA in their science classes, and that can be done at Penn, but the competition is certainly more fierce.” The honest question isn’t “which school is the most prestigious?” It’s “at which school am I most likely to earn A’s in organic chemistry?”

# 2. State Flagship Universities

State flagship programs — the primary public research universities in each state — consistently produce competitive medical school applicants. They offer robust pre-health advising offices, extensive research infrastructure, and the breadth of course offerings that pre-med students need. The cost advantage is also substantial. An undergraduate degree at a private institution can cost $300,000 and more — and medical school adds significant additional expense on top of that. In-state tuition at a flagship university can provide equivalent pre-med preparation at a fraction of the cost, which matters enormously when you’re planning a career that involves multiple advanced degrees.

“There are a number of fantastic undergraduate programs in the US at colleges and universities where students can be highly successful of achieving their goal of getting into med school without spending the same amount of money,” Gentry notes. “Med school is so expensive in the US that sometimes families come and say, ‘They’re going to med school, but they don’t want to spend three hundred thousand for undergrad.'” The trade-off is that large introductory science classes can make it harder to build relationships with faculty. That’s a real consideration, but it’s also one a student can navigate with intention.

# 3. Small Liberal Arts Colleges

Small liberal arts colleges are among the most underrated pre-med environments in the country. Their student-to-faculty ratios are lower, which translates directly into greater access to undergraduate research — often more accessible than at large research universities where undergraduates compete with graduate students for lab positions. The academic culture at these institutions also tends to support the kind of broad intellectual development that medical schools actively value: writing, critical thinking, engagement across disciplines.

A student at a liberal arts college who pursues a humanities or social science major while completing the required science prerequisites is building an application that stands out — not despite that choice, but because of it. For more on why the liberal arts model works well for ambitious students, see our guide on the educational advantages of liberal arts colleges.

# 4. Med Schools Want More Than Biology Majors

One of the most common misunderstandings in pre-med planning is the assumption that biology must be the undergraduate major. It is not a requirement, and the flexibility this creates is significant. Every pre-med student must complete the same prerequisite courses regardless of major: four biology courses, four chemistry courses, two physics courses, sufficient calculus to support those sciences, and at least one social science course. But the major itself is wide open — and medical schools actively value the diversity that non-biology majors bring.

“Med schools love students who major in the humanities. They love students who major in the social sciences,” Gentry says. “Be a religion major, be a psychology major, be an English major — because they need doctors who have excellent critical thinking skills. When a student comes to them with an undergraduate degree outside of biology, they know they’ve engaged in writing and thought about other topics, and that makes them able to relate to patients and helps them become better doctors.”

The structural difference matters too. An English major might require only eight to ten courses to complete, compared to twelve to sixteen for a biology major. That scheduling flexibility creates real room to complete prerequisites, pursue a meaningful major, and still explore the broader undergraduate experience.

# 5. Programs With Strong Pre-Health Advising Infrastructure

A strong pre-health advising office is one of the most important — and least glamorous — variables in evaluating a pre-med school. The best pre-health advisors don’t just check boxes. They track the school’s medical school acceptance rates, understand the MCAT, support students through the application process from start to finish, and help students understand what a competitive application actually looks like at different medical schools.

Questions worth asking directly: Does the school have a dedicated pre-health advisor, or does pre-med advising fall under general academic advising? What is the school’s track record of medical school acceptances? Does the office provide committee letters of recommendation, and how competitive is that process? The answer to these questions tells you more about a school’s pre-med environment than its ranking does.

#6. Colleges That Give You Real Research Access

Medical schools want to see that applicants have engaged with scientific inquiry beyond the classroom. Research experience — working in a lab, contributing to a faculty project, or conducting independent study — signals intellectual curiosity and the capacity to function in a scientific environment. At large research universities, undergraduate research spots can be competitive. At smaller colleges, access is often more direct. When evaluating schools, ask specifically how undergraduates access research opportunities and what the typical timeline looks like — can a first-year student begin working in a lab, or is that typically reserved for juniors and seniors? Both large and small institutions can provide strong research access. The key is knowing what to ask — and asking it before you commit.

# 7. Schools Where You Can Be More Than a Pre-Med Student

Medical schools are explicit about wanting students who are well-rounded. A pre-med student who leads a student organization, pursues a serious interest in the arts, or engages in community service is not wasting time. They are building the application that medical schools are actually looking for. “Med schools are interested in students who are well-rounded, not just students who can perform well in science classes,” Gentry explains. “A pre-med student is really somebody who’s engaged in what they love, and has shown interest in the world, along with getting good grades in their science classes.” The right pre-med school is one where the schedule and culture allow for that kind of engagement — not just a pressure cooker designed to filter students out before they reach their applications.

# 8. BS/MD Programs

Combined BS/MD programs, in which a student is conditionally accepted to both an undergraduate program and a partnered medical school simultaneously, represent a distinct option worth understanding — but not for most students.

Veteran college admissions expert Jamie Berger is direct about this: “BSMD programs are insanely selective, and I don’t think there are that many 16-year-olds who know they want to be a doctor. I don’t necessarily recommend it except for that very rare kid. It’s kind of like going and becoming a Division 1 athlete — you don’t get to have that full college experience. You’re already in a career training program for four years.”

Some programs, like the University of Pittsburgh’s direct admission pathway, offer meaningful security and are worth serious consideration for the right student. But applying without also building a strong conventional college list is a risk — these programs are hard to get into, and the experience of a student who enrolls can feel narrowly focused in ways that aren’t right for everyone.

The Right Question to Ask

Families who arrive at Great College Advice with a list of “the top pre-med schools” are usually surprised to find that we don’t spend much time on that list. What we spend time on instead is understanding the student: their academic profile, their financial situation, where they’re likely to thrive rather than just survive, and what they want from the undergraduate years beyond the pre-med track.

The best pre-med school in the country is the one where your student earns excellent science grades, gets into a lab, and becomes the kind of well-rounded person that medical schools are genuinely looking for. That school exists at many price points, in many formats, and across many ranking tiers.

If you’d like personalized guidance, our team at Great College Advice specializes in exactly this kind of strategic planning for pre-med students. Book your consultation today.

The post Top Pre-Med Schools in the US first appeared on Great College Advice.

Choosing a college for a student who wants to become an architect is not a standard college search. It is an entirely different process. Most families approach it the same way they would for any other major: compile a list of well-ranked schools, assess cost and location, and apply broadly. That approach fails architecture students in ways that only become visible after acceptance letters arrive. The pool of qualifying programs is smaller, the admissions standards within those programs are dramatically more competitive than the university’s overall rate, and the preparation required before a student even submits an application is specific and non-negotiable.

At Great College Advice, when we work with a student who is interested in architecture, the first thing we do is get to know them. We try to understand why they want to be architects. And then we help them understand that this path is very directed. That directedness is both the defining feature of architecture school and the reason the college search must begin earlier and run differently than it does for most other majors.

This guide first details how the architecture track differs from typical undergraduate paths, then outlines the steps high school students should take to be competitive, reviews program evaluation strategies, and clarifies key considerations regarding acceptance rates as families begin the college search.

Why Architecture Is Unlike Any Other Undergraduate Search

The Program Is Five Years, Not Four

Families must recognize that most accredited professional architecture programs span five years, not four, with an additional year typically for an embedded internship. This is a required part of the degree, not optional. Budgeting for only four years or expecting a four-year timeline can catch families off guard if they do not establish this fact early.

The five-year structure shapes both social and academic aspects. Architecture students spend most of their time with their cohort, moving through studios and design courses together. Unlike majors that allow broad academic mobility, architecture is concentrated and insular. Some find this energizing; others may see it as limiting. Consider which environment best suits your child early in the process.

Direct Entry Is the Standard Model

Most schools of architecture operate on a direct-entry model, meaning students apply directly to the architecture program and begin their major-specific coursework in the first year. Students are not given general admission to the university with the option to transfer in; instead, applicants must gain acceptance into the architecture program from the start. If a student is accepted to the university but not the architecture program, they cannot begin studies in architecture and must consider other options or majors.

This distinction is crucial when building a college list. A school with an accessible overall acceptance rate may have a far more selective architecture program.

The Intersection of Art, Math, and Engineering

Architecture sits at the convergence of three demanding disciplines: art, math, and engineering. This combination makes the programs rigorous and the preparation requirements specific. Students who are strong in only one or two of these areas will struggle. The programs are looking for students who can demonstrate spatial reasoning, design sensibility, and quantitative competence simultaneously — and the portfolio requirement is the primary mechanism for evaluating the first two. Because of the technical overlap, many students also research what the best engineering schools in the US are to see how different institutions approach these integrated disciplines.

What Students Must Do in High School

Build a Design Portfolio

For architecture applicants, the portfolio is more than evidence of interest—it’s a required tool for demonstrating visual thinking and design sensibility, directly affecting admission decisions.

An architecture portfolio is more than art class assignments. It should show spatial awareness, design process, and creative problem-solving. Students serious about architecture should build portfolios across high school—through art classes, design courses, independent projects, and relevant workshops. Starting in junior year is too late for real development.

We work with students to understand what a competitive portfolio looks like for the specific programs they are targeting and help them structure their high school activities to build toward it.

Take the Right Math Courses

Architecture programs require strong math skills, and high school math preparation directly impacts readiness. Structural and systems coursework depends on mathematical ability, so underprepared students will struggle with the demanding curriculum.

Seek Out Design Experiences

Beyond the portfolio, students benefit from any hands-on design experience they can accumulate before college: architecture summer programs, drafting or CAD courses, participation in design competitions, or even independent study of architectural history and theory. These experiences serve two purposes. First, they produce material for the portfolio. Second, and more importantly, they help the student confirm that architecture is genuinely the right path — because the commitment required once enrolled is substantial, and discovering a mismatch after two years in a direct-entry program is costly.

How to Evaluate Architecture Programs

Program Culture and Studio Environment

Because architecture students spend so much of their time within their cohort, the culture of the studio environment matters more than it does in most other majors. Some programs are intensely competitive; others are collaborative. Some emphasize theoretical and conceptual design; others are more technically and professionally oriented. Visiting programs, speaking with current students, and understanding the faculty’s design philosophy are all essential steps — not optional ones.

The following table compares key structural variables across program types that families should evaluate:

Setting Realistic Expectations About Acceptance Rates

The acceptance rate gap between a university’s overall admissions and its architecture program is one of the most important and most frequently misunderstood facts in this search. Selective top architecture programs may have acceptance rates that vary widely from the institutions that house them.

This has two practical implications for building a college list. First, the list must be built using architecture-specific acceptance data, not university-wide data. A school that appears to be a “match” based on overall selectivity may be a reach for architecture specifically. Second, the list must include genuine safety options — programs where the student has a strong probability of admission based on their portfolio, GPA, and test scores — not just aspirational targets. While the portfolio is critical, students should also know how to prepare for the SAT to ensure their academic profile remains competitive for these selective institutions.

We help families build architecture-specific college lists that account for this gap, using program-level data rather than institutional averages.

Common Mistakes Families Make in the Architecture Search

Treating the university acceptance rate as the architecture acceptance rate. The two numbers are not interchangeable. Always research program-specific admissions data.

Starting the portfolio too late. A portfolio assembled in the spring of junior year or the fall of senior year does not reflect the development arc that programs want to see. Students who are serious about architecture should build their portfolios throughout high school.

Skipping the campus visit for architecture programs. For most majors, a campus visit is helpful but not essential. For architecture, visiting the studio spaces, meeting faculty, and experiencing the program’s physical environment are meaningful parts of the evaluation. The studio is where a student will spend the majority of their undergraduate years.

Not researching program length. Most professional architecture programs are five years, not four. Families who plan around a four-year timeline will be caught off guard if this is not confirmed early in the search.

Building the Right Foundation Before the Search Begins

The architecture college search is most successful when it starts with the student, not the school list. Understanding why a student wants to be an architect, whether they are genuinely suited to the concentrated, studio-intensive environment of an architecture program, and whether they have the design sensibility and quantitative preparation to be competitive — these questions come before any list is built.

Once those questions are answered honestly, the search becomes more focused and more productive. The pool of qualifying programs is smaller than in most other fields, which means every application carries more weight and every choice on the list matters more. A student who has built a strong portfolio, taken the right math courses, and accumulated genuine design experience enters that smaller pool as a competitive applicant. A student who has not done that preparation is applying to programs that will see the gap immediately.

The architecture path is demanding, directed, and deeply rewarding for students who are genuinely suited to it. The college search for that path deserves the same level of intentionality.

If your student is interested in architecture and you want to build a college list grounded in program-specific data (including portfolio guidance and realistic acceptance rate benchmarks), our counselors at Great College Advice work through exactly this process with families. The earlier that work begins, the stronger the foundation your student brings to their applications. Schedule your consultation today.

The post Pre-Architecture: How to Choose a College first appeared on Great College Advice.

Pre-professional programs in the US represent one of the most misunderstood categories in college planning. Families encounter the term early — often when a student announces they want to be a doctor, lawyer, or dentist — and immediately assume that the path to professional school begins in high school. It does not. Understanding what pre-professional programs actually are, how they function within the undergraduate experience, and what each track genuinely requires is the foundation for making smart college choices.

The core distinction families need to grasp first: in the United States, professional schools — medical, law, dental, veterinary — are graduate programs. Students complete a four-year undergraduate degree first, then apply. There is no direct-entry equivalent to the UK model, where students enter medical or law school straight from secondary school. This means the undergraduate years are not a formality before the “real” training begins. They are the proving ground where professional school applications are built, character is developed, and the academic record that determines graduate school outcomes is established.

At Great College Advice, when we work with families navigating this landscape for the first time, we make one thing clear immediately: what a student does in high school will not help them get into medical school. What they do in college will. The job of high school is to get into the right undergraduate program. The job of college is to build the record, experiences, and personal development that professional schools evaluate.

Why the Undergraduate Years Matter More Than Families Realize

The most common mistake families make is conflating high school preparation with professional school preparation. Shadowing a doctor or doing research in high school will not help a student get into medical school. Medical schools evaluate the undergraduate record — the science GPA, the MCAT score, the research experience, the clinical exposure, and the personal growth that happened during the college years.

This misunderstanding has a practical consequence: families sometimes push students toward narrow, pre-professional high school activities at the expense of the authentic exploration that actually produces strong college applications. The better approach is to focus high school on getting into the strongest possible undergraduate environment, then use college to build the professional school application.

A second misunderstanding involves the word “pre-professional” itself. In the US, pre-med, pre-law, pre-dental, and pre-vet are not majors. They are advising tracks — structured sequences of coursework and extracurricular requirements that students pursue alongside whatever undergraduate major they choose. A student can be pre-med and major in English. A student can be pre-law and major in economics or political science. The track and the major are separate decisions, and conflating them leads students to make major choices that are unnecessarily restrictive.

The Major Pre-Professional Tracks in the US

Pre-Med

Pre-med is the most common pre-professional track, and it is also the most rigidly structured in terms of required coursework. Medical schools specify the science prerequisites they expect applicants to have completed: four biology courses, four chemistry courses, two physics courses, and enough calculus to support performance in those science classes. One social science course is also typically required.

What pre-med students share in common is that they are all taking those same core science courses and working to perform well in them. The grades in science courses carry the most weight in medical school evaluation. Beyond that, the paths diverge significantly. Some pre-med students major in biology or neuroscience — neuroscience being a popular choice because it concentrates the science curriculum without requiring coursework in plant biology and ecology. Others major in the humanities or social sciences and complete the required science courses alongside a completely different academic focus.

Medical schools actively value applicants who majored outside the sciences. As our counselor Pam Gentry explains: “Med schools love students who major in the humanities. They love students who major in the social sciences. Be a religion major, be a psychology major, be an English major, because they need doctors who have excellent critical thinking skills.” An English major, for example, may only need eight to ten courses to fulfill the major requirements, leaving room to complete the pre-med science sequence and still explore other academic interests. A biology major, by contrast, typically requires twelve to sixteen courses for the major alone.

The standardized test at the center of medical school admissions is the MCAT. Students who are performing well in their undergraduate program and feel prepared can choose to study for the MCAT at the end of junior year and apply directly to medical school without a gap year. Others take a gap year to allow more time for MCAT preparation. Both paths are valid. The critical point: the MCAT is not test-optional. Students who struggled with standardized test anxiety on the SAT or ACT need to address that pattern before the MCAT becomes relevant, because there is no alternative route into medical school. Understanding how to prepare for the SAT can help high schoolers build the testing stamina they will eventually need for these professional exams.

Pre-Dental

Pre-dental students follow a track that closely parallels pre-med in its science requirements. Like pre-med students, they work with a pre-health advisor at their college or university to ensure they are meeting the specific prerequisites dental schools require. The science coursework is similarly rigorous.

Where dental school admissions diverges from medical school admissions is in the emphasis on well-roundedness and personal maturity. Dental programs want to admit students who know what they are getting into — who have engaged authentically with the world during their undergraduate years, not just completed a checklist of requirements. Pre-dental students need to build genuine life experiences alongside their academic preparation. Dental programs are looking for applicants who have grown as individuals, not just as students.

Pre-Vet

Veterinary medicine is a track that students frequently underestimate in its competitiveness and complexity. Vet school admissions are among the most selective in professional education. There are also fewer colleges and universities in the US that offer animal science, and having access to animal science classes during the undergraduate years is very important for pre-vet students — they do not necessarily need to major in animal science, but access to those courses matters significantly. Students interested in veterinary medicine need to begin building relevant animal experience early in their undergraduate years, work closely with their pre-health advisor, and treat the track with the same seriousness as pre-med.

Pre-Law

Pre-law differs from the health science tracks in one important structural way: there is no prescribed set of prerequisite courses that law schools require. Law schools evaluate undergraduate GPA and LSAT score, and they accept applicants from virtually any major. The question of which major best prepares a student for law school is therefore a genuine one, and the answer is more nuanced than most families expect.

Law schools value applicants who can read carefully, write precisely, and reason analytically. Majors that develop those skills — political science, English, government, and economics — tend to produce strong law school applicants. The LSAT is the standardized test law schools use, and like the MCAT, it is not optional. Students who are performing well in their undergraduate program can choose to study for the LSAT during junior year and take it at the end of junior year or the summer after, allowing them to begin law school applications in their senior year. A gap year is also a valid option for students who want more preparation time.

Pre-Architecture

Architecture is a pre-professional track that operates differently from the health and law tracks. When a student is interested in architecture, it is important to first understand why, and to help them understand that this path is very directed. What students need to do as high school students in order to achieve their goal of getting into a school with architecture matters — it is one of those few majors where the path is highly specific from the start. Students applying to architecture programs should work closely with a counselor who understands the particular demands of this search.

Standardized Tests Across Pre-Professional Tracks

The following table summarizes the primary standardized tests associated with the major pre-professional pathways covered in this article, along with typical timing for when students take them.

None of these tests are optional. Students who applied test-optional to undergraduate programs need to understand that professional school admissions operate under different rules. Building comfort and competence with high-stakes standardized testing during the undergraduate years is not optional preparation — it is a prerequisite for the application process itself.

Choosing the Right Undergraduate Program for a Pre-Professional Goal

When a student is serious about a pre-professional path, the undergraduate program they choose matters in specific, concrete ways. At Great College Advice, we help families identify undergraduate environments that give students the strongest possible foundation for professional school — not just any college that offers the required courses.

The factors that matter most include the quality of the pre-health or pre-law advising office, the availability of research opportunities for pre-med and pre-vet students, the academic rigor of the science curriculum, and the overall environment for student development. A strong pre-health advising office is not a luxury — it is the infrastructure that helps students navigate prerequisite planning, understand what professional schools are looking for, and time their standardized test preparation correctly.

Research access matters specifically for pre-med and pre-vet students. Medical schools want to see that applicants have had genuine research experience, and the availability of undergraduate research opportunities varies significantly between institutions. Large research universities often provide more access to faculty-led research, while smaller liberal arts colleges may offer more direct mentorship within a smaller research environment.

The One Thing Pre-Professional Students Get Wrong

Across every pre-professional track, there is a single pattern that consistently undermines otherwise strong candidates: treating the undergraduate years as purely a credentialing exercise.

Professional schools — medical, dental, law, veterinary — are not looking for students who did nothing but study and check boxes. They are looking for people who know who they are, who have had real experiences, and who have grown into mature adults capable of handling the demands of professional training and, eventually, professional practice. As Pam Gentry puts it directly: “Pre-professional students need to not just focus on growing academically as a student, but to grow socially and within their community, and find their voice and find who they are. Professional schools want people who know who they are, who’ve had some experiences, along with the qualifications they need.”

The undergraduate years are the last extended period of genuine exploration most people will have before professional training narrows their focus entirely. Students who spend those years exclusively optimizing for GPA and test scores, at the expense of authentic engagement with the world around them, arrive at professional school applications with strong numbers and thin personal narratives. The students who succeed are those who did both — who met the academic requirements and used the undergraduate experience to become someone worth admitting.

Mapping Your Pre-Professional Path

Understanding the pre-professional landscape is the starting point, not the destination. The next step is identifying which undergraduate programs give a specific student — with their particular academic profile, interests, and professional goals — the strongest possible foundation for the graduate school they want to reach.

That work requires more than a list of colleges with good pre-med programs. It requires understanding how a student’s current course selection, intended major, and personal strengths align with what professional schools actually evaluate.

If you are working through this process and want guidance grounded in deep experience, placing students into top undergraduate programs as the first step toward their professional school goals, our team at Great College Advice is equipped to help you build that plan from the ground up. Schedule a consultation to talk to our team.

The post What Pre-Professional Programs Exist in the US first appeared on Great College Advice.

Pre-med is not a major. That single misconception shapes how thousands of students approach their undergraduate years — and getting it wrong costs them time, flexibility, and often the breadth of experience that medical schools are actively looking for. Understanding what pre-med actually means, what it requires, and how to navigate it strategically is one of the most important things a student can do before they set foot on a college campus.

At its core, pre-med is a track — a set of coursework, experiences, and milestones a student completes during their undergraduate years to qualify for medical school admission. It sits alongside a student’s chosen major, not in place of it. The distinction matters because it opens up far more options than most families realize, and it reframes the entire undergraduate experience from a narrow checklist into something genuinely formative.

This guide explains what pre-med involves, what medical schools actually want to see, how to choose the right undergraduate program, and the one mistake that derails even the most academically prepared students.

Why the Undergraduate Years Matter More Than Families Expect

The most common misunderstanding we encounter at Great College Advice is the belief that what a student does in high school (e.g. volunteering at a hospital) will directly influence their medical school application. It does not. Medical schools evaluate what students do during their undergraduate years. High school activities build the foundation for getting into the right college; college activities build the foundation for getting into medical school.

This distinction has a practical consequence: students and families should not be making pre-med decisions in high school. The priority in high school is identifying the right undergraduate program: one that gives the student access to the science courses, research opportunities, and personal development experiences that medical schools require. Everything else follows from that.

A second misunderstanding is that elite undergraduate institutions are the only reliable path to medical school. Medical school acceptance in the US is roughly 40% overall, and while institutions like Penn have strong pipelines into medical school, so do flagship state universities and a number of small liberal arts colleges. The most important variable is not the prestige of the undergraduate institution — it is the student’s GPA in their science courses. That GPA can be earned at Penn, but the competition there is considerably more intense. A student who thrives academically at a well-resourced state flagship or a research-active liberal arts college may build a stronger application than one who struggles in a hyper-competitive environment at a brand-name school.

What Pre-Med Actually Requires

Pre-med is defined by a specific set of coursework that medical schools require applicants to have completed. Those requirements are consistent across programs: four biology courses, four chemistry courses, two physics courses, sufficient calculus to support those science classes, and at least one social science course. Beyond coursework, medical schools want to see research experience and a strong performance on the MCAT.

That is the floor. What distinguishes competitive applicants is everything built on top of it.

The Core Science Courses

The required science courses are the non-negotiable foundation of any pre-med track. Grades in these courses carry more weight than grades in any other part of a student’s transcript — medical schools evaluate science GPA separately from overall GPA, and a weak science GPA is difficult to overcome regardless of how strong the rest of the application is. Many students often ask what is a good GPA for competitive admissions, and for medical school, the answer is almost always “as high as possible,” particularly in these core prerequisites.

This is why choosing the right undergraduate environment matters so much. A student who earns strong science grades at a school where they have access to faculty mentorship, smaller class sizes, and genuine research opportunities is better positioned than one who earns mediocre grades in large, competitive lecture courses at a more prestigious institution.

Research Experience

Medical schools want evidence that students have engaged with scientific inquiry, not just absorbed it in a classroom. Research experience — working in a lab, contributing to a faculty project, or participating in an undergraduate research program — is a meaningful differentiator on a medical school application. Small liberal arts colleges are particularly strong in this area: their faculty-to-student ratios give undergraduates access to research opportunities that are harder to secure at large research universities where graduate students and postdocs fill most lab positions.

The MCAT

The MCAT is the standardized test at the center of medical school admissions, and unlike the SAT or ACT, it is not test-optional. Every medical school applicant must take it, and preparation is substantial.

Students who are performing well in their undergraduate program and feel academically prepared have two viable options: study for the MCAT at the end of junior year and apply directly to medical school, or take a gap year to allow more preparation time before applying. Both paths are legitimate. The right choice depends on the student’s academic trajectory, their confidence with standardized testing, and what they want to get out of their undergraduate experience.

One important note for students who struggled with test anxiety on the SAT or ACT: the MCAT is not optional, and the skills required to sit for a high-stakes standardized test — focus, endurance, confidence under pressure — need to be developed during the undergraduate years. Students who have historically been anxious test-takers should treat that as something to actively work through, not defer.

Choosing Your Major as a Pre-Med Student

The most liberating fact about pre-med is that a student can major in virtually anything. The required science courses can be completed alongside almost any undergraduate major, and medical schools do not favor biology majors over students who have studied other disciplines.

Approximately 60% of pre-med students do major in biology as their undergraduate field of study. The remaining 40% major in something else entirely, and that is not a disadvantage. Neuroscience is one popular alternative because it is more concentrated than a standard biology degree — students avoid coursework in plant biology and ecology that is less relevant to medicine — and it tends to provide easier access to research opportunities.

Medical schools actively seek students who have majored in the humanities and social sciences. An English major, a psychology major, a religion major — these students arrive at medical school with demonstrated critical thinking skills, writing ability, and exposure to the full range of human experience. Those qualities make better doctors. They also make more interesting applicants. As our counselor Pam Gentry puts it: “Med schools love students who major in the humanities. They need doctors who have excellent critical thinking skills, and when a student comes to them with an undergraduate degree outside of biology, they know they’ve engaged in writing and thought about other topics — and that makes them able to relate to patients and become better doctors.”

There is also a practical scheduling argument for non-biology majors. A biology degree typically requires 12 to 16 courses to complete. An English degree requires 8 to 10. A student who majors in English can complete their major requirements, fulfill all the pre-med science courses, and still have room in their schedule to explore electives, pursue research, and engage in the broader undergraduate experience. A biology major, by contrast, may find their schedule almost entirely consumed by major and pre-med requirements from the start.

The following table compares the workload implications of common major choices for pre-med students.

Pre-Med vs. Pre-PA: Understanding the Distinction

Some students arrive at the pre-med question genuinely uncertain whether they want to become a physician or a physician assistant. The undergraduate coursework for both paths is nearly identical — the same science classes, the same emphasis on research access. This overlap is also common for those looking at best schools in the US offering pre-dental programs, as many health professions share these foundational requirements. The key difference is clinical experience: pre-PA programs place significantly more weight on hands-on patient care hours during the undergraduate years.

A number of undergraduate institutions offer formal pre-PA programs that allow students to continue directly into a PA program at the same university, contingent on meeting academic benchmarks. The equivalent pathway for pre-med is the BS/MD program, which is a separate and distinct application process.

When a student is genuinely undecided between the two paths, the more conservative choice is to pursue pre-med. A student who starts on the pre-med track can transition to a PA program later with relative ease. The reverse — starting in a formal undergraduate PA program and then attempting to pivot to medical school — is considerably more difficult. For a 17-year-old who is not certain, keeping options open is the right strategy.

The Mistake That Derails Pre-Med Students

The single most common error pre-professional students make is treating their undergraduate years as purely academic preparation for graduate school. They take the required courses, pursue research, study for the MCAT — and neglect everything else. Medical schools see through this immediately.

Admissions committees at medical schools are not looking for students who only perform well in science classes. They are looking for people who know who they are, have had meaningful experiences, and have grown into mature, self-aware adults. A student who spent four years doing nothing but studying and accumulating credentials is a less compelling applicant than one who also led a student organization, engaged with their community, pursued a passion outside of medicine, or developed a perspective on the world that has nothing to do with biology.

This is not a soft preference — it is a structural requirement of the application. Medical school personal statements, secondary essays, and interviews are designed to surface exactly this kind of depth. Students who have not developed it have nothing to draw on.

The undergraduate years are the last time in a student’s life when they have the freedom to explore broadly, try things that might not work, and discover who they are outside of a professional identity. Pre-med students who treat that time as purely instrumental — as a means to an end — arrive at medical school with strong transcripts and thin characters. The ones who thrive are those who grew as people alongside their academic preparation.

Choosing the Right Undergraduate Program for Pre-Med

Selecting the right undergraduate institution is one of the highest-leverage decisions a pre-med student makes. The factors that matter most are not rankings — they are the specific resources and environment the school provides for pre-med students.

Key variables to evaluate include: the quality and accessibility of the pre-health advising office, the availability of undergraduate research positions, the school’s historical track record of medical school acceptances, class sizes in introductory science courses, and the overall cost of attendance relative to the family’s financial situation.

On cost: medical school in the US is extraordinarily expensive. Families who are already planning to fund four years of undergraduate education followed by four years of medical school — plus residency — should think carefully about where to spend those undergraduate dollars. A student who earns strong science grades at a well-resourced state flagship and graduates with manageable debt is in a better position than one who attends a prestigious private university, struggles in a hyper-competitive environment, and arrives at medical school having already spent $300,000 on undergraduate education.

What Pre-Med Students Should Take Away

Pre-med is a track, not a major. It requires specific science courses, research experience, and a strong MCAT score — but it does not require a biology degree, an elite undergraduate institution, or four years of single-minded academic focus. Medical schools want students who are academically prepared and genuinely interesting as people. The undergraduate years are the time to become both.

The students who build the strongest medical school applications are those who choose an undergraduate environment that supports their science coursework and research access, select a major that reflects genuine intellectual interest rather than perceived strategic advantage, and invest in their own growth — socially, personally, and intellectually — alongside their academic preparation.

If you are working with a student who is serious about medicine and wants to identify the right undergraduate program for their specific goals, academic profile, and financial situation, our team at Great College Advice builds individualized college lists with exactly this kind of long-range planning in mind. Schedule a free consultation today.

The post What Is Pre-Med in College first appeared on Great College Advice.

Choosing the right undergraduate program is a future dentist’s first high-stakes decision. Most families make this choice with incomplete information. Many assume any strong university will do, or that a biology degree is the only path. This leads students into programs poorly matched to their goals. In reality, dental schools evaluate applicants on science coursework, clinical exposure, personal development, and maturity. The undergraduate institution shapes how easily students build all four.

This guide highlights three key areas: the types of undergraduate programs that give pre-dental students the strongest foundation, what dental schools are actually looking for, and how to evaluate any program, not just the most recognizable ones.

Why the Undergraduate Choice Matters More Than Families Realize

A common misconception is that dental school preparation begins in high school, through shadowing, research, or pre-health activities. According to Pam Gentry, a counselor at Great College Advice, framing is wrong in a consequential way: “What they do in high school won’t matter for what they do in graduate school. High school time is for getting into college. What they do in college will help them get into their professional school.”

This distinction matters because it reframes undergraduate selection. Don’t ask, “Which school has the best reputation?” Instead, ask, “Which school gives this student the best setting for required science coursework, research, clinical opportunities, and growth?” These questions are different and often have different answers.

Dental school acceptance is competitive. The undergraduate program a student attends shapes the quality of pre-health advising and access to research partnerships. It also determines class size for competing grades and the range of experiences outside the classroom. These factors directly affect the strength of a dental school application.

What Dental Schools Are Actually Looking For

The Science Baseline

Pre-dental students need a strong science curriculum, including biology, chemistry (general and organic), biochemistry, and physics. Dental schools closely review these courses—the science GPA is the most scrutinized academic part of the application.

The implication for program selection is direct: a student needs an undergraduate environment where they can perform at the top of their science classes, not merely survive them. At highly competitive research universities, introductory science courses are large, graded on steep curves, and populated by students who are as well or better prepared. Dental schools see the transcript, not the curve.

Well-Roundedness Is Not Optional

Dental programs do not want students who did nothing but study science. As Pam Gentry explains, “Dental programs don’t just want kids who did nothing but that. They want students who are well-rounded and have grown as humans into mature adults while in college. Students really need to have those life experiences in college to be a qualified applicant to most dental programs.”

This is a structural requirement, not a soft preference. Dental schools are training clinicians who will spend their careers working directly with patients. They need applicants who are personable, communicative, and emotionally mature. These qualities develop through engagement with campus life, leadership, service, and real personal interests. They do not develop through extra science coursework.

If a program offers only a rigorous science curriculum with little support for student life, research, or community engagement, it’s a weaker pre-dental environment than one that supports both.

Personal Development as a Measurable Outcome

The most underappreciated dimension of pre-dental preparation is personal growth. Pre-professional students often make the same mistake. They treat undergraduate years as a checklist to complete, not as a formative period to inhabit. Gentry identifies this as the single most common error. “Pre-professional students in their undergraduate years need to not just focus on growing academically as a student, but to grow socially and within their community, and find their voice and find who they are. Professional schools want people who know who they are, who’ve had some experiences, along with the qualifications they need.”

Programs that support development—through extracurricular infrastructure, advising relationships, and a campus culture encouraging engagement—produce stronger dental school applicants. In contrast, programs that focus solely on academics lack these key advantages.

Program Types That Support Pre-Dental Students

State Flagship Universities

State flagship universities provide pre-dental students with key advantages: personalized pre-health advising, strong in-state dental school relationships, large research facilities accessible to undergraduates, and diverse campus life supporting personal growth.

The financial benefit is significant. Attending an in-state flagship at a lower cost preserves flexibility for graduate school. As Gentry notes for pre-med students (and pre-dental students), undergraduate expenses affect professional school plans—choosing a more affordable path can reduce total educational debt.

Small Liberal Arts Colleges

Small liberal arts colleges are consistently underestimated as pre-dental environments. Their advantages are concrete. Smaller class sizes mean students are not competing anonymously for grades in 300-person lecture halls. Professor accessibility is higher. Office hours are more meaningful, and research partnerships are more available to undergraduates. Our counselors advise students to ask current students: “What’s the largest class size you’ve had, and how many of those classes have you had that are that size?” At a liberal arts college, the answer is typically more favorable than at a large research university.

Liberal arts colleges produce well-rounded, intellectually engaged applicants valued by dental schools. A psychology major who completes required science courses, conducts research with a faculty mentor, and leads a campus organization is a more compelling applicant than someone meeting the same science requirements at a larger, more anonymous school.

Small liberal arts colleges prioritize undergraduates over research, making them supportive for pre-health students.

Universities With Dedicated Pre-Health Infrastructure

Some universities invest in pre-health advising and programs, giving pre-dental students measurable advantages. These offer structured DAT prep, application timelines, committee letters, and interview prep. When evaluating, students should ask: How does the advising office support dental applicants? What is the dental school acceptance rate for pre-dental track students?

A pre-health committee letter is required or strongly preferred by most dental schools. This composite evaluation comes from a faculty committee, not individual professors. Not all undergraduate institutions offer them. Confirm that a program provides committee letters. For those considering high-profile California research institutions, comparing UCLA and USC reveals differences in pre-health resource distribution.

How to Evaluate Any Pre-Dental Program

Many assume any strong university will do, or that a biology degree is the only path. This leads students into programs poorly matched to their goals. In reality, dental schools evaluate applicants on science coursework, clinical exposure, personal development, and maturity. The undergraduate institution shapes how easily students build all four.

The following framework applies regardless of institution type. These are the variables that determine whether a program will support a strong dental school application.

When visiting campuses or speaking with current students, ask the question Gentry recommends for any academic program evaluation: “If there are one or two things you could absolutely change about this school or the major you’re studying, what would those things be?” The answers reveal structural weaknesses that admissions materials will not disclose — and those weaknesses are unlikely to change by the time a student arrives on campus.

The Major Question: What Pre-Dental Students Should Study

Pre-dental students are not required to major in biology, though many do. The required science courses — biology, chemistry, biochemistry, physics — can be completed as prerequisites regardless of major. A student who majors in psychology, neuroscience, health sciences, or even a humanities discipline can complete every dental school prerequisite while building a more distinctive application profile.

Dental schools, like medical schools, value applicants who demonstrate intellectual range. A student who majored in Spanish and completed all required science courses signals something different — and often more compelling — than one who followed the default biology track. The science GPA is what dental schools scrutinize; the major is context.

The one constraint is scheduling. A biology major typically requires 12 to 16 courses to complete. A humanities major may require only 8 to 10, leaving more room in the schedule for the science prerequisites, research, clinical shadowing, and the extracurricular engagement that rounds out an application. As Gentry observes about pre-med students — and the same logic applies to pre-dental: “An English major might only have eight to ten classes to fulfill that major, but a biology major is going to have twelve to sixteen classes to fulfill that major. So you can actually earn an English degree and do those biology classes you need, and explore your world.”

The Mistake That Costs Pre-Dental Students the Most

The single most damaging pattern in pre-dental preparation is treating undergraduate years as a credential-building exercise rather than a period of genuine development. Students who spend four years optimizing their transcript — taking only required courses, avoiding activities that don’t “look good” for dental school, and deferring any authentic personal engagement — arrive at dental school interviews as technically qualified but personally underdeveloped applicants.

Dental schools conduct interviews precisely to assess who a person is, not just what they have accomplished academically. An applicant who can speak with genuine depth about a leadership experience, a community they served, or a perspective they developed through a non-science course is more compelling than one whose entire undergraduate narrative is “I completed the prerequisites and shadowed a dentist.”

The correction is not to neglect academics — the science GPA remains the most important quantitative variable in a dental school application. The correction is to pursue authentic engagement alongside academic performance, not instead of it.

Choosing the Right Program for Your Path

The best pre-dental program is not the most prestigious one a student can access. It is the one that gives them the highest probability of performing well in science courses, accessing research and clinical opportunities, developing as a person, and emerging with a competitive dental school application without carrying unsustainable undergraduate debt.

For most students, that means a state flagship university with strong pre-health infrastructure, a small liberal arts college with high faculty accessibility and a strong pre-health track record, or a mid-sized university with a dedicated pre-dental advising program. The name on the diploma matters far less than the environment it represents.

If you are working through this decision and want guidance tailored to your academic profile, extracurricular interests, and financial situation, our counselors at Great College Advice specialize in exactly this kind of pre-professional pathway planning — matching students to undergraduate programs that set them up to achieve their graduate school goals, not just their college admissions goals. Reach out to start that conversation.

The post Which Are the Best Schools in the US Offering Pre-Dental Programs first appeared on Great College Advice.

Merit scholarships are one of the most powerful — and most misunderstood — levers a family has for lowering the cost of college. Unlike need-based aid, which is driven by financial forms and federal formulas, merit aid is awarded for academic strength, talent, and fit, which means families have real, proactive control over how much they can earn. The families who win the largest awards aren’t usually the ones with the highest GPAs; they’re the ones who build their college lists strategically.

At Great College Advice, our team has provided personalized college admissions consulting since 2007. This guide breaks down how merit aid actually works, where the real money is, and the specific moves that maximize an award.

What is a merit scholarship, really?

A merit scholarship is a tuition discount a college uses to recruit students it wants on campus. As Sarah Farbman, a senior admissions consultant at Great College Advice, puts it: “Merit-based aid is what we like to think of as a discount. It is a recruitment tool to attract the type of students that they want to see on their campus.”

That reframing changes everything. Merit aid isn’t a favor or a lottery, it’s a calculated investment, which makes it predictable and targetable. It’s also entirely separate from the FAFSA: what a family reports financially has no bearing on a merit award.

Which colleges don’t offer merit aid?

The most recognizable names generally don’t. Schools like Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard don’t use merit scholarships because their applicant pools are deep enough that discounting serves no purpose. Sarah Farbman is blunt about it: “You could be the best student in the entire universe. You are not going to get a merit-based scholarship at Yale. They don’t do it.”

By contrast, many strong public and private universities regularly take $20,000–$35,000 per year off their sticker price as a recruitment tool. At a school charging $60,000 in tuition, that can bring the real cost closer to $30,000. That’s the category of merit aid worth pursuing — and it requires deliberately building those schools into your list.

What are the three types of college financial aid?

Before chasing merit specifically, families need a map of the landscape. Sarah Farbman frames it as three sources: “There are essentially three types of aid out there. We have the aid that comes from colleges, and then aid from an external source.” Aid from colleges splits into need-based and merit-based; external scholarships come from outside organizations.

Need-based aid starts with the FAFSA, which generates a Student Aid Index — the government’s estimate of what a family can pay. Colleges receive that number but apply their own institutional methodology, so packages vary. Merit aid is decided independently based on the student’s profile.

How do you maximize merit aid?

The single highest-impact move is list-building. As Sarah Farbman says, “The number one best thing that you can do is to write the correct college list” — populated with schools where the student’s profile lands them in the range colleges reward. Great College Advice uses historic merit-aid data sets to identify which institutions regularly award $20,000–$35,000, so every list balances reach, match, and likely schools against realistic merit targets.

The second lever is the academic profile itself. Because merit aid is keyed to grades and scores, strong performance in rigorous coursework — and knowing how to prepare for the SAT or the ACT — directly drives offers. But once a student hits senior year, the transcript is fixed; the strategy shifts entirely to list-building and positioning.

Finally, watch for conditional and application-based awards. Some colleges have fixed merit aid amounts based on pre-determined GPA and/or test scores. As Paul Wingle, a member of the Great College Advice community, notes: “Merit is automatic at UNF. Other schools have competitive merit awards that require extra supplemental steps and/or priority deadlines.” Some scholarships also carry strings — a music award that requires joining an ensemble, for instance — so read the fine print before committing.

How do you read a financial aid award letter?

Separate “other people’s money” from “your money later.” Sarah Farbman draws the line clearly: loans and work-study are your money — federal loans get repaid with interest, and a $15-an-hour campus job makes only a limited dent in a $60,000 bill. Grants and scholarships are other people’s money — a Dean’s Scholarship that removes $15,000, or a $10,000 award to study at one of the best engineering schools in the US, which never has to be paid back. That’s the category to maximize.

Letters aren’t standardized, which makes comparison hard. Sarah Myers, also a Senior Admissions Consultant at Great College Advice, warns that the details matter: a merit scholarship may apply only to the first two years, or a quoted price may assume you take a work-study job. To compare offers honestly, Great College Advice uses a structured spreadsheet that captures full cost of attendance at each school, breaks down every aid component by type, and surfaces the real out-of-pocket gap. For a deeper walkthrough, see our guide on how to decode a financial aid award letter.

Can you negotiate a merit scholarship?

Yes. And the mechanism is specific. The leverage comes from a competing offer from a peer institution. Here’s an example: a $30,000 offer from the University of San Diego carries no weight at Stanford, which doesn’t consider USD a peer. But that same USD offer against a $15,000 award from Loyola Marymount gives you a real opening — you can tell Loyola Marymount it’s your first choice for specific reasons, that USD is offering double, and ask them to come closer. Not a demand to match; a nudge.

Jamie Berger, our veteran college admissions expert, frames the leverage that timing creates: a family can write to a top-choice school and say they’re being offered far more elsewhere and ask whether the school can help. As he explains, early action preserves that bargaining ability — early decision does not, because you’re bound to one school. He also stresses running the net price calculator before applying anywhere binding.

Where should families search for external scholarships?

Pursue these after maximizing institutional aid, since the amounts are smaller and the competition broader. Sarah Farbman recommends starting with the high school guidance counselor, who often knows local scholarships that are less publicized and less competitive, then moving to aggregator databases like Fastweb, BigFuture, Going Merry, and Unigo. Do the math on essay-based awards: if a scholarship is $500 and the essay takes hours, weigh whether it’s worth it.

Navigate financial aid with a professional by your side

Merit scholarships aren’t lottery tickets; they’re the predictable result of a deliberate strategy that begins with the college list and runs through application positioning and offer comparison. Or, as Paul Wingle reminds families: “Do not make an enrollment commitment before costs are known.”

If a merit-focused college list is a priority for your family, the counselors at Great College Advice can identify the specific schools where your student’s profile positions them for meaningful awards. And we offer guidance on the full process from list-building through comparison and negotiation. Book a consultation with our team.

FAQ

Do Ivy League universities give merit scholarships? Generally no. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton don’t use merit aid because their applicant pools are strong enough that they don’t need to discount.

Does the FAFSA affect merit aid? No. Merit aid is awarded on academic profile and fit, independent of the FAFSA.

Can merit scholarships be negotiated? Yes, most effectively using a competing offer from a peer institution as leverage.

How much merit aid is realistic? At schools that use it as a recruitment tool, $20,000–$35,000 per year off the sticker price is common for students in the top of the applicant pool.

The post How to Get Merit Scholarships first appeared on Great College Advice.

Choosing between a career as a physician and a career as a physician assistant is one of the most consequential decisions a pre-health student will make — and most 17-year-olds are asked to make it before they have enough information to choose wisely.

At Great College Advice, our counselors regularly work through this question with students and families. The honest answer is that for many students, the right choice is not yet knowable — and the undergraduate strategy should reflect that reality.

Why the Decision Is Harder Than It Looks

The surface-level comparison is simple: physicians complete four years of medical school and a residency, while physician assistants complete a two- to three-year PA program after a bachelor’s degree. Physicians have independent prescribing authority; PAs practice with physician oversight, though the scope of that oversight varies by state and specialty.

What families underestimate is how early the structural divergence begins. The college a student attends, the clinical access built into the curriculum, and the research opportunities on offer all shape a pre-health applicant’s trajectory in ways that are genuinely difficult to reverse mid-stream.

As Pam Gentry, Senior Admissions Consultant at Great College Advice and our lead pre-health advisor, puts it: “This is a pretty tough decision for 17-year-olds to make. We try to research and work with the student and family to help figure that out — but also give them leeway to say, ‘You can change your mind, because you’re 17.'”

What Both Paths Share

Both pre-med and pre-PA students complete the same foundational science courses in their first two years, so an undecided student loses nothing by starting on the pre-med track.

The grades in those science courses carry disproportionate weight in both application processes. As Gentry notes, “The grades in their science courses are the grades that matter the most.” Understanding how admissions officers read a transcript — including how weighted and unweighted GPAs compare — is useful context before the undergraduate years begin.

Both paths require graduate-level standardized testing. Pre-med students take the MCAT; PA programs require an equivalent test. Students who struggled with high school testing should use undergrad to build confidence for these exams.

Where the Paths Diverge

Clinical experience is the defining difference. PA programs place hands-on clinical exposure at the center of the application, they want evidence that applicants understand what a PA actually does in a clinical setting.

“The undergraduate experience for pre-med and pre-PA is fairly similar — they need to take the same science classes, and they need to have access to research,” Gentry explains. “Where they differ is that in the pre-PA path, they are really looking for clinical experiences more so than in the pre-med path.”

This has direct implications for college selection. When building a list for a pre-PA student, our team specifically looks for undergraduate institutions with structured clinical access: hospitals, clinics, or community health settings where students can accumulate meaningful hours. Some schools offer dedicated pre-PA programs that build this access directly into the curriculum and, for students who meet the benchmarks, provide a pathway into the institution’s own PA program without a separate application cycle. Building that college list thoughtfully is one of the most important early decisions a pre-health student makes.

Program structure flexibility is the other major divergence. Students who enroll in a pre-PA pipeline program and later decide they want to pursue an MD face a genuine transition challenge. The reverse — a pre-med student who later decides to pursue PA — is structurally simpler because the coursework overlaps and clinical hours accumulated along the way are directly relevant to both paths.

The Major Question

A persistent misconception is that pre-med students must major in biology. Roughly 60% of medical school applicants do study biology as undergraduates, but medical schools actively value applicants who bring a different intellectual foundation.

“Med schools love students who major in the humanities. They love students who major in the social sciences,” Gentry says. “Be a religion major, be a psychology major, be an English major — because they need doctors who have excellent critical thinking skills.”

There’s a practical scheduling advantage too: an English major typically requires eight to ten courses to complete, while a biology major requires twelve to sixteen. A student majoring in English can satisfy every pre-med science prerequisite and still have room to explore widely. The same logic applies to pre-PA students. Choosing a college major should be driven by genuine intellectual curiosity, not a misguided belief that anything other than biology is off-limits.

What Professional Schools Actually Want

Both medical schools and PA programs evaluate more than academic performance. Gentry’s summary of what pre-professional students most commonly get wrong is worth quoting directly: “Pre-professional students need to not just focus on growing academically as a student, but to grow socially and within their community, and find their voice and find who they are. Professional schools want people who know who they are, who’ve had some experiences, along with the qualifications they need.”

A student who spent four years optimizing their GPA without developing leadership, community involvement, or a coherent sense of purpose is a weaker applicant than their transcript alone would suggest.

When You’re Not Sure: The Default Strategy

For genuinely undecided students, the structurally safer default is to treat themselves as pre-med during the undergraduate years. As Gentry advises: “If they aren’t really sure, then they should consider going for the pre-med, and then they can always decide later to do PA. But if you join a PA program as an undergrad, it’ll be a little more difficult to make that transition into med school.”

Key takeaway: Choosing pre-med in college keeps career options open and allows you to apply to PA or MD programs later. Gaining science GPA, research, and clinical hours as a pre-med will also meet PA requirements if plans change. A gap year before applying can help with final decisions.

Choosing the Right Undergraduate Institution

Key takeaway: The three most important questions when picking a college for pre-health goals are: Is there strong pre-health advising? Does the school offer research (pre-med) or clinical exposure (pre-PA)? Will I be able to develop academically and personally?

State flagship universities typically offer strong pre-health pipelines. Small liberal arts colleges often provide more direct access to faculty research and the mentorship relationships that generate strong letters of recommendation. Cost is also a legitimate variable — medical school in the United States is expensive, and the undergraduate institution need not be elite to produce a strong professional school candidate.

If you’re working through this decision and want guidance on building a college list that supports your pre-health goals, our team at Great College Advice can help. Reach out to start that conversation.

The post Pre-Med vs. Pre-PA: Which Path Is Right for You first appeared on Great College Advice.